The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

The 1854 Marble Collegiate Church -- 5th Avenue and 29th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1621 when the Dutch East India Company was organized, the
Protestant Reformation was only a century old.The Dutch settlers who founded New Amsterdam two years later had left a
homeland still embroiled in the Revolt of the Seven Provinces--the Protestant
Dutch against the Roman Catholic King Philip II of Spain.They brought with them their Reformed Dutch
religion.According to The New York
Times over two centuries later, in 1626 “the first religious meetings of which
any record is left, were held in the upper room of a mill erected by Francois
Molemaker, near the Port of the Battery.”

It was the planting of the seed of the Reformed Dutch Church
in New York City.The Collegiate Church
was founded in 1628.Over two centuries later, in 1851 an
additional structure (there were Reformed Dutch churches on Washington Square,
one on Fifth Avenue and 21st Street, and another on Lafayette Place
and Fourth Street) was deemed necessary to accommodate to northward residential
migration.

Church lore suggests that Fifth Avenue was at the time rural
and that livestock roamed the chosen building site at the northwest corner of
29th Street.In fact, Fifth
Avenue was paved as far uptown as 42nd Street in the 1840s and the
area was quickly developing with high-end rowhouses.For the church fathers to erect a white
marble edifice capable of seating 1,500 worshipers in a weed field would have
been either exceptionally far-sighted or simply foolish.

The cornerstone was laid on November 26, 1851 with what The
New York Times deemed “appropriate ceremonies.”Architect Samuel A. Warner’s design had transformed a traditional New
England wooden church design into a commanding white marble edifice.The large blocks of marble were hand-chosen
from quarries at Hastings, New York.

Construction would take three years at a cost of $200,000—a staggering
$4 million in today’s dollars.The Times
called the completed structure “though-out one of the finest church buildings in the cities of
New-York or Brooklyn.”The dedication
was held on October 11, 1854.In
addition to the ground floor seating, 400 worshipers could be accommodated in
the gallery wrapping three sides of the sanctuary.

The Times praised the beautiful marble stone.“Spires, finials, and other terminal points
are all of the same material, strongly distinguished in color and consistency
from the stone in common use for similar purposes.”

photo by Alice Lum

While the architect called his design “Romanesque,” The
Times was a bit more accurate in saying “The groundwork of the design is decorated
Gothic.”The newspaper described the
structure in detail.“The magnificent
tower and spire, rising to a total height of 230 feet from the pavement, is
flanked on the north and south corners, fronting on the avenue, by two
pinnacles, each 135 feet high.On each
side wall are six main buttresses, inclosing five mullioned windows,
twenty-five feet in height, and of proportionate breadth.”Perched on the steeple’s pinnacle was a
six-foot weather vane in the form of a rooster.

Inside, the vast auditorium space was a single cavernous
space with no visible means of support of the arched ceiling.Graceful groining sprouted from long, heavy
carved brackets in the corners and between the windows.

Collegiate Church drew its name from its “colleagues;”
ministers who served all the Reformed Dutch churches rather than having a
dedicated pulpit.That method of
rotating ministers expanded into an early ecumenical idea in 1858 when other
denominations joined in.On March 23rd
of that year The Times reported that “Some weeks since several of the up-town
pastors agreed to hold union meetings, worshiping one week in each of their churches.The first was held at Dr. Gillette’s church
in Twenty-third –street; the second at Dr. Parker’s, Fourth-avenue;the third at Dr. Macauley’s, Fifth-avenue;
the fourth at the Rev. F. G. Clarke’s Twenty-third-street; the fifth at the
Collegiate church, on Fifth-avenue and Twenty-ninth-street.”

Further down on the page that day, the newspaper reported on
a recent meeting of the New-York City Temperance Alliance.Before very long the Collegiate Church, too, would
be fully embroiled in the battle against alcohol.

But first there was a greater issue on the horizon—civil war.On February 3, 1862, less than a year after
the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter, a meeting was held in the church to
discuss ways to minister to the soldiers in the field.The Times reported that “A very large
assemblage was gathered last evening in the Collegiate Church…the object being
to hear addresses from eminent Divines, upon the necessity of providing for the
religious necessities of the army, by furnishing the troops with tracts and
reading generally of a religious character.”

Among those speaking that night was the Rev. Dr. Strong,
Secretary of the Board of Publication of the Reformed Dutch Church.Although already many publications had been
forwarded to the troops in the battlefields, he urged those assembled that it
was not enough.

“Still more was needed; and the Reverend Doctor proceeded
eloquently and pathetically to urge upon his hearers the necessity of hearty
and active cooperation in this good work, which was designed of God.”

In 1873 the total membership of the Collegiate Reformed
Dutch Church throughout the city numbered 1,600.Of those, 1,100 attended the church on Fifth
Avenue at 29th Street.

photo by Alice Lum

While times and traditions changed in some churches, the
Dutch Reformed Church did not.That was
made clear on October 16, 1883 when the Rev. Dr. Terry delivered a preached
here specifically denouncing reforms.

“The Rev. Dr. Terry delivered a sermon, in which he remarked
that of all Protestant denominations the Dutch Reformed was the most
conservative.Others had made changes in
their forms of services, and changes had even been suggested in doctrine to
keep up with the age.The Reformed
Church was not strong numerically as compared with other denominations, but the
preacher protested against any innovations in church doctrine,” reported The
Times.

While the Collegiate Church remained steadfast in opposing
change for the most part—at least in doctrine—it was quick to adapt new
technology when appropriate.By the end
of the year in 1890 the church had installed the latest in technology.Until now churches enlisted the aid of young
boys to pump the bellows that provided wind through the organ pipes.

In December 1890 a newspaper noted that “The blowing of
church organs by means of electric motors has now reached that point where the
undertaking may be said to have passed the experimental stage and become a
permanent and assured success.”The article
made note of the church’s innovative use of electric motors.The “electric
plant,” said the article “in the Collegiate Church at Twenty-ninth Street and
Fifth Avenue very nearly solves the problem of a compound organ.This organ has two bellows—one supplies the
entire organ, with the exception of one register, which is supplied by a
high-pressure bellows.The arrangement
is to throw this bellows into automatic action when the stop is drawn, thus
making the supply of wind available.When the stop is put in, the automatic arrangement is checked and the
supply is cut off.”

By now the surrounding neighborhood was one of brownstone
mansions and high-end hotels.The
churches of the city’s wealthy closed their doors for three months every summer
as the wealthy congregants abandoned the city for resorts like Newport and Bar
Harbor.The hiatus gave the churches the
opportunity to repaint or make other necessary improvements without causing interruption
to services.

On October 11, 1891 the church, now formally known as The
Marble Collegiate Church, reopened with a change in its services.The New York Times reported that “The
interior of the church was repaired and changed during the Summer.In accordance with the new plan—the cathedral
plan—of carrying on the work of the church, there were three services
yesterday.”

The following year the fiery and influential pastor Rev. Dr.
David J. Burrell gave one of his first sermons on temperance.Railing against what was termed by another
minister “The Respectable Saloon,” Burrell charged “I should prefer that my boy
learned to pollute his body and destroy his soul in the lowest ‘dive’ than in
one of these ‘respectable saloons.’His
course toward hell would be quicker, and would cause him and those who cherish him
less suffering.

“The ministerial voice that was recently raised up in behalf
of the saloon uttered the words, ‘The saloon has come to stay.’So have yellow fever and smallpox come to
stay.So have snakes and tigers come to
stay.So have theft, murder, and
uncleanness come to stay. But has any minister of the Gospel ever yet dared to
put the benediction of God upon these enemies of mankind?”

Reverend Burrell’s tirade against drink would be among the
first stones thrown in a long-lasting battle.

Interestingly enough, Burrell was less intolerant when it
came to sports.A month later, on
November 19, it was announced that “To accommodate those who may desire to
attend church on Thanksgiving Day, and also to witness the Yale-Princeton
football game, the hour of service has been changed to 10:30 A.M. for that day.”

Burrell was unimpressed with Warner’s mostly-clear, mullioned
windows and envisioned the more up-to-date stained glass.He initiated a thrust to replace the windows
and on December 9, 1900 the first was unveiled.Donated by Sarah A. Sandham, the Tiffany Studios window was dedicated to
the memory of her son, George Augustus Sandham.A year later another Tiffany window was installed; this one donated by
Jennie Dayton.

Dr. Burrell’s project ground to a halt and it would be
nearly a century before another stained glass window replaced one of Warner’s
originals.

In 1900, the year that the Tiffany Studios windows were installed, brownstone mansions were giving way to commercial buildings -- photograph Library of Congress

On January 26, 1915 the powerful evangelist Billy Sunday announced
that he had been invited to conduct a revival meeting at the Marble Collegiate
Church, mainly to attack alcohol.He
gladly accepted the challenge.

“Although I am pretty well dated up, I certainly can’t let
the Modern Babylon slip by.Three
strikes ought to be called on booze in that city, and I’m going to help all I
can.

“Wherever you find booze you’ll find the devil backing it up
with all the canister hell can produce and I’m ready to fight it anywhere.The Lord’s battles must be fought wherever
booze is entrenched,” he was quoted in The Evening World.

Three years later the conflict was still raging.On January 28, 1918 William Jennings Bryan
appeared as a “surprise speaker” and he pulled no punches regarding his disdain
of the press in its opposition to prohibition.

“The New York newspapers are the center of the opposition to
prohibition in this country.An
editorial in one of them is like getting a whiff of a whiskey bottle.”

Saying he expected to see the country free of saloons before
he died, he decried the alcohol industry.“The liquor interests would tie every American down, bind him hand and
foot, and pour liquor into him three times a day.I thank God we have a War Department and
government which made the cantonments safe for the soldier boys.”Bryan was referring to the law that
prohibited the sale of liquor to soldiers.

Reverend Burrell, William Cullen Bryan and the other
prohibitionists eventually got their way.In 1933, however, with the repeal of Prohibition, the cause for which
the Marble Collegiate Church had so ardently supported for decades was lost.

Even more memorable and influential than Burrell was the pastor who came to Marble Collegiate in 1932. The charismatic Dr. Norman Vincent Peale served the church for more than half a century; during which he wrote 46 books including his best seller The Power of Positive Thinking. He innovated ministry when he took to the airwaves in 1935 with his weekly "The Art of Living."

A mid-century postcard depicts the sanctuary decorated for Easter.

As the exclusive residential neighborhood continued to move
northward along Fifth Avenue the mansions around Marble Collegiate were razed
for business buildings.Yet the
congregation remained upscale throughout the decades of the 20th
century.The eyes of the world watched
on December 22, 1968 when President-Elect Richard Nixon escorted his daughter
Julie into the church for her wedding.Outside throngs of New Yorkers crushed the avenue to get a glimpse of
the politician and the beautiful bride.

A statue of the charismatic and influential Dr. Norman Vincent Peale stands outside the church -- photo by Alice Lum

National attention of a more scandalous sort came when
church member Donald Trump met 21-year old Marla Maples at a 1985 tennis
tournament in Atlantic City.The married
Trump was smitten with the small-time actress and People Magazine later noted “By
1987, during services at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, Trump was secretly
romancing Maples as he found ways to temporarily ditch Ivana and their kids.”

In 1997 a committee was organized to address the
windows.Eight stained glass windows
were commissioned to complete the sanctuary windows.The following year a restoration project was
initiated that would take a year and a half to complete.The nearly 150-year old marble was cleaned
and repaired along with other necessary restorations.

photo by Alice Lum

In 2002 a spectacular wedding took place in the church that
perhaps overshadowed even the Nixon wedding.The sanctuary was banked with flowers and fifteen bridesmaids proceeded
down the aisle in a lavish production of a ceremony for 56-year old Liza
Minnelli and concert promoter David Gest.The wedding party included Elizabeth Taylor and best man Michael
Jackson.In the pews were Jane Russell,
Gina Lollobrigida and columnist Cindy Adams.

Little of Marble Collegiate Church has changed, both
inside and out, since it opened its doors in 1854. Not only a symbol of the oldest Protestant
Church in the country, it is a rare and wonderful architectural survivor.